Visit to Yizhou Oct 2012

As we left Desheng behind, crossing at the Toll-Gate and travelling on to Yizhou, we were looking forward to meeting the many Desheng Girls who were now studying in Yizhou.

           The streets were decorated in Red Lanterns 

to mark Travel Festival in Yizhou!

                          and we just LOVED the matching red Post-vans!

                              Scary Lions guarding the school gates!

     as we entered Yizhou No 2 Middle School 

where many of our girls are studying

         We LOVE the grounds of this school with its trees, waterways, bridges

and the teachings of the masters to inspire excellence in the students here

And here are the Boards showing the top students of the Year!

We are SO proud that many of our girls make it on to this prestigious board each year!

When we arrived, it was straight down to work, with the girls filling out the forms for their sponsors.

Answering questions like.....

• What do like to do?
• What makes you happy?
• What is your greatest wish?

                              Some very thought-provoking answers..........

And the lovely thing is that for this term, 

sponsors have been asked to fill in similar forms 

to send back to the girls with information about themselves and their lives!

(  In fact Matthew just delivered them last week! The girls were so excited to receive them!)

               It is all taken very seriously and overseen by the Women's Association

When the work is done, The Team hand out support payments for each girl, 

all overseen and recorded and signed for.

Then the real fun begins...... 

Girls receiving letters and photos from their sponsors.

If you are the sponsor and you are asked regularly to send photos/notes for your girl, please know how special this part is for the girls. 

A few minutes of your time produces some great big smiles!

A gift for this lovely girl from her sponsors family whose sons are the talented Majestic Dandelions! Her own copy of their CD! COOL!

                                                And even better ......
                      Sponsors who come all the way from Finland to visit them :-)

It is great fun just "being" with the girls and having time to chat. 

They are more and more confident in their English to chat these days. 

( Unfortunately our Chinese is still not much better :-( )

Here are the girls who live in Desheng, but now study at Yizhou. 

They form a close group of girls who help and support each other away from home.

Here is the whole Deshng/Yizhou Team with cards handmade by children in a Touch Primary School, Dunfermline

to celebrate Sweetie and Sunshine,

the Pandas gifted to Scotland from China!

   And here with their beautiful scarves, gifts from sponsors around the world

                     The little ones had some fun ideas of what to do with them :-)

                 And before we knew it, our fun-filled afternoon had come to an end....

the girls had to go back to their studies.....

                        and we left , along the familiar road back to Hechi.

                                                     Until next Year, Girls!